Peter Foster is the Telegraph's US Editor based in Washington DC. He moved to America in January 2012 after three years based in Beijing, where he covered the rise of China. Before that, he was based in New Delhi as South Asia correspondent. He has reported for The Telegraph for more than a decade, covering two Olympic Games, 9/11 in New York, the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, the post-conflict phases in Afghanistan and Iraq and the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan.

Britain is a casualty of US disengagement from the world

Sometimes it is salutary to be reminded how others see you, not how you see yourself – which was the case when the Eurasia Group, the leading global risk consultancy, published its annual Top Risks list for 2014.

The list reflects the world view of Eurasia Group's president, Ian Bremmer, who coined the phrase "G-Zero world" a couple of years back to describe the current geopolitical landscape, which is being shaped by a "notable decline" in US foreign policy characterized by Barack Obama's ultra-pragmatism in foreign affairs.

Top of the list – above tensions over economic reforms in China and the rise of "al-Qaeda 2.0" in Iraq and Syria - is "America's troubled alliances"; the idea that the US is both challenged by a rising China but also withdrawing from the world, creating deep uncertainty among old allies over how far the US is prepared to underwrite the existing world order.

In this "every-country-for-itself world", America – being the world's biggest economy - continues to prosper, but its traditional allies – Israel, Japan and Britain – fare much less happily.

Since the US can no longer be relied upon to fulfil its previously expected role in the world, Bremmer sees its second-tier allies - Germany, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Brazil, and Indonesia – starting to hedge their bets against an unreliable US.

The resulting uncertainty is bad news for US corporates looking for global trade – and indeed for British business, as the recent failure to woo the UAE to buy the Typhoon jets shows – and a gradual erosion of the kind of international confidence that is necessary to close global trade deals, such as the transatlantic trade deal (TTIP), or collective actions like the Iran nuclear sanctions.

A transatlantic trade deal is essential to the UK, since it helps frame relationships with Europe within a wider, more global picture.

It was British persuasion that helped Obama include a mention of the deal in his State of the Union address a year ago, but a year later – thanks to the Snowden debacle and delays to the transpacific deal which is unlikely to be completed this year – the prospects for TTIP look increasingly bleak.

With Ukip poised to further undermine Britain's relationship with Europe at the European Parliament elections in May, it will be still harder for Britain to convince the US it has a meaningful future in Europe – something which the US already fears is in serious doubt.

So in a new world order where everyone now doubts where they stand, the US remains confident it can look after itself. But as the US disengages, Britain, particularly a Britain drifting away from Europe, should be much less sanguine.